How do you get off the prelims? UFC's Elkins hopes 'The Korean Zombie' can help

By the time I found Darren Elkins backstage at Montreal’s Bell Centre, it was a little less than an hour before the UFC pay-per-view was set to start.

Elkins had already fought his fight, been seen by the doctor, changed into his street clothes, and was now standing around with a smile so big it almost distracted me from the large cut that snaked down his lumpy forehead before disappearing into his eyebrow.

That’s the good part about being in the first fight of the evening. You get in, get your work done, and then head for the hotel bar to celebrate.

The bad part is, even when you dominate for three rounds like Elkins had just done against Steven Siler on the UFC 154 prelims this past weekend, you don’t know if anyone saw you. If a punch lands in an empty arena, does it really make a sound?

The unanimous-decision win over Siler was the fourth consecutive victory in the UFC for Elkins, so how did he get stuck jerking the curtain at 6:30 in the evening while other, less accomplished fighters got spots on the FX prelims? I mean, sure, every fighter will tell you that he’s just glad to be here, to get to fight for a living in the top organization in the world, but come on, we all know there’s a big difference between fighting on Facebook and fighting on FX or pay-per-view. One of those your friends can get together and watch on a big screen. For the other they have to huddle over a laptop.

“When I first saw where we were on the card, I was surprised,” Elkins told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I think we were one of the last fights added, so maybe that had something to do with it. But yeah, I was a little disappointed.”

Why shouldn’t he be? Of all the bouts in his four-fight winning streak, all but one came on the Facebook prelims, which is about as far from prime time as you can get and still be in the UFC. Not that there’s anything wrong with the prelims. Some great fighters have started out there. It’s just that, if you stay there too long, you risk becoming a prelim fighter. Fans think of you that way, and then it becomes hard for them to think of you any other way.

No one wants that – certainly not Elkins, who has been manhandling fighters ever since dropping to featherweight. In the fight before this one, he mauled “TUF 14″ winner Diego Brandao for a unanimous-decision victory. Before that he did the same to the UFC’s lone Chinese fighter, Tiequan Zhang. Now he’d did the same to Siler, taking him down at will, beating him bloody on the mat, and nearly finishing him with several chokes. So what’s it going to take?

Answering that question is, at least in part, a job for his manager – Audie Attar of Paradigm Sports Management.

“First and foremost, Darren gets himself more attention by winning and winning dominantly,” Attar said. “A 4-0 start in the featherweight division is a great start.”

At the same time, it’s clearly not yet enough. For one thing, there’s the lack of finishes. While Elkins seemed close to putting Siler away at several points, he still went to the scorecards for the fourth straight fight. UFC executives love to see fights finished, which sometimes doesn’t come naturally to former college wrestlers such as Elkins, who spent two years on the mats at University of Wisconsin-Parkside before becoming a union pipefitter back home in Indiana.

But here’s where we get into the other part of the problem for Elkins. You see, pipefitters aren’t exactly known as a loquacious bunch. Hard-working, blue-collar types? Sure. Trash-talking quote machines who love the spotlight? Not so much.

“Darren is a down-to-earth, normal guy,” Attar said. “He shied away from press in the past, but he loves to fight for the UFC and understands that he needs to reach out to the fans more often, which usually means conducting more interviews. He’s gotten more comfortable with the media, and I think he realizes he needs to make himself more available so fans can get to know who he is.”

He also needs the same thing every up-and-coming fighter needs: big fights against someone with a big name.

According to Elkins (15-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) and Attar, they’re hoping that someone might be “The Korean Zombie,” Chan Sung Jung (13-3 MMA, 3-0 UFC), who’s been out of action since May due to shoulder surgery.

“I really want that fight,” Elkins said. He even has a date picked out. “I would love to get on that [UFC on FOX 6] Chicago card. Chicago is actually closer to me than Indianapolis. It’s only a half-hour away from me. To get to fight there, that close to home, that’d just be awesome.”

If he got to fight in front of a friendly crowd and against a name opponent like the “Zombie,” it might also be the biggest opportunity of his career, the kind of thing that can vault a guy from the prelims to the main card if he plays his cards right. Elkins sure wouldn’t mind that change, even if it means he has to stay up a little later on fight nights. Those Facebook prelims are a fine place to start out, but nobody wants to live there.

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.